Dragon #300 Dragons question

[Kitsunekaboom]

Ok, lately I have been statting dragons, incase I ever get around to having a group and needing a dragon, would like to have them already built.

Anyway I was building the wyrmlings from the 5 dragons of this issue, the fiendish dragons, and I notice, none of these have the traditional ability with sorcery, kinda dissapointed. Is this errataed anywhere?

 

[Alzrius]

Ok, lately I have been statting dragons, incase I ever get around to having a group and needing a dragon, would like to have them already built.

Anyway I was building the wyrmlings from the 5 dragons of this issue, the fiendish dragons, and I notice, none of these have the traditional ability with sorcery, kinda dissapointed. Is this errataed anywhere?

In a word - nope. There isn't even much to suggest that this is a mistake. They do have a few spell-like abilities, IIRC, however. If you want a slightly more definitive answer, fire off an email to the Sage at TSRsage@aol.com

 

[Knight Otu]

I seem to remember a post on the old WotC Dragon boards that this was deliberate. Unfortunately, the Dragon boards no longer exist.

I do have vague hopes that the Draconomicon will include those dragons and clear this up.

 

[Shade]

I think it has alot to do with their other special abilities being rather powerful. I threw a pyroclastic dragon at my party, and his half fire/half sonic breath weapon and disentegrating line breath weapon, coupled with his powerful spell-like abilities (incendiary cloud, fire storm, wall of fire, wall of stone) made for a very challenging encounter for its CR.

 

[Kitsunekaboom]

Well yea the pyroclastic dragon and rust dragon are extremely powerful but still, it seems weird that they can't cast spells. I hope they are in the Draconomicon as well, that would actually make me want to buy the book eventually. (The price tag sure does nothing to encourage me.)

 

[Knight Otu]

The fiendish dragons are a weird case--they were originally written for Fiend Folio, pulled for lack of space, slated instead for Draconomicon, and then published in Dragon.

So I guess technically they'd also be "pick-up" though Draconomicon had them "first".

The other monsters cover a pretty wide range, from various dragon-type creatures that aren't "true" dragons (in the way the metallics and chromatics are), such as the storm drake or the faerie dragon, to creatures with draconic elements, such as the squamous spewer (think draconic gibbering mouther and you're getting close), to creatures that simply have some kind of affinity or link to dragons, such as the hoard scarab (a tiny but deadly vermin that resembles a gold piece).

There's a bit of a nod to epic-level play (I believe a few epic feats are reproduced for selection by really old dragons), but it's not a significant portion of the book. Still, the dragon-oriented prestige classes would be a good way to make an already CR 21+ dragon even more challenging.
Andy Collins
Senior Designer
Wizards of the Coast Roleplaying R&D

Sounds like they're in.

And I guess the fairy dragon won't make the ToH crew happy.